Rhodes University Journalism and Media Studies lecturer Rod Amner was the keynote speaker at a cocktail evening held late in 2006 to celebrate 10 years of publication of the “Local Government Transformer”.

Glenn Hollands reports

Amner hailed the Transformer for its resilience through a period that had seen many non-mainstream publications closed down, “You took the plunge when many of the alternative magazines that started up in the apartheid era came unstuck.”  He challenged the journal to continue to define the transformation that its name implied and to examine the role it had set for itself in relation to the mainstream media and society as a whole.

The Transformer, suggested Amner represented an interesting example of small independent media that brought to mind some of the basic questions about the role of the press. Drawing upon classical concepts of the press, Amner reviewed the liberal-pluralist notion of a free press, noting the links to a free market, the requirement for an absence of restriction or other government influence. A free press produces a diversity of opinion that makes for more rational public decision-making through “…free marketplace of ideas and information as a self-righting mechanism, (that) minimises bias and exposes weak arguments and evidence.” Thus the liberal pluralist notion of a free press assumes that the press can, without bias, mediate between rulers and the ruled “providing the necessary political, financial and social information to the electorate which they can use to form rational voting decisions.” 

But, cautioned Amner, this thesis hinged on the existence of diversity. What sort of diversity is currently reflected in the pages of regional newspapers and the Transformer itself in terms of class, race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, philosophy and politics? 

In the liberal tradition, the press also functions as a fourth estate in that it balances the exercise of state power in much the same way that the independence of executive, legislative and judicial authorities is purported to better serve democracy. In this role the press functions variously as public watchdog, protector of the individual against unrestricted state power and a keeper of the public conscience. This notion was particularly relevant to the issue of power, including that of the state. Amner quoted journalists Peter Beaumont and John Sweeney of The Observer, “The best stories are those that afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, the ones that the people of power do not want told.” This function, however, was confronted by the issue of objectivity and how to achieve neutrality and balance in journalism. By seeking to reflect a diverse range of opinions and perspectives, free of government control, the press is regarded as creating a platform for informed public opinion and enhanced ability for citizens to assess government policy. As newspapers gradually lost their party affiliations, journalists worked to establish their independence as searchers after “objective truth”. The “news” became a commodity whose value was determined by its accuracy and objectivity.

Amner cautioned, however, that these liberal-pluralist notions of the press had been subjected to strong criticism by writers like James Curran who had warned against the tendency to aggregate the views of individuals into something portrayed as “public opinion”. This understanding of public opinion as the collective views of individuals, paid less attention to representative bodies like civics. It also tends to ignore the role of the press in mediating class and other conflicts and is often blinkered when it comes to the exercise of non-state power, for example through property and patriarchy. Nor had a market oriented media proved to be free from private or state influence and editorial integrity was often compromised through the exercise of corporate power or other forces of monopoly capital. As Amner noted, “The vigilance of the press can be blunted by the economic interests and partisan loyalties of its controllers.”

The so-called public media like the South African Broadcasting Corporation presented an important set of issues related the vigilance of the Corporation and ability to withstand covert pressure from government. “Broadcast authorities can be packed with government supporters; financial pressure can be exerted; informal and formal representations can be made to promote self-censorship; the future of broadcasting organisations can be threatened through legislative reorganisation.”

Amner also noted the more radical critique of the press by critiques like Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky who suggested that the media is simply the propaganda tool of an elite that carefully manages what the public read and hear and therefore think. Journalists, in this view, are geared to boosting sales or ratings and the production of  “infotainment” that not only overrides any sense of public interest but leads to the depoliticisation of civil society. “Journalism functions in the interests not of society as a whole, but of dominant groups and classes.”

Important sectors of the media, however, while acknowledging their position in a capitalist economy, had continued to make credible claims to social responsibility and tried to function independently of both market and state. The Transformer suggested Amner, seemed to fit this mould. Jurgen Habermas had identified this space between state and civil society as the public sphere.  Amner described this as “an ensemble of discursive spaces between civil society and the state where ordinary citizens – either on their own or as representatives of larger social groupings, can debate public issues of concern to them.” This space is characterised by unrestricted and critical interaction between the spheres of government, corporates and the domestic. One of the problems of this understanding is the notion of a unitary public sphere where social and ideological differences are overcome and rival perspectives get an equal hearing. Instead, critics of Habermas like Nancy Fraser had suggested “The goal of participatory parity can be better achieved today through a plurality of competing publics.” This required that weaker social groups required their own “discursive domains” where identities and discourses could be developed according to their respective interests and needs. Thus, a rationale existed for propagandistic forms of journalism that, according to James Curran, began to offset the “limitations of mainstream media, and the wider imbalance of power in society.” In the more radical approach, the challenge was to represent the “prevailing conflictual rather than consensual structure of society.” Unlike the classic liberal approach the radical democratic understanding is that  “…subordinate groups are less able to articulate and advance their interests than more powerful groups and that journalism should facilitate subordinate groups’ access to the public domain…”

In contrast a refined Social Responsibility perspective of the press as articulated by Jay Rosen of New York University, proposed the notion of public or civic journalism where, according to Amner, “journalists do not take away power or responsibility from the community, but rather help order the discussion to ensure that communities face their problems. A wide-ranging exploration of conflicting perspectives and sources of information are aired and weighed…” Emerging from the late 1980s American experience of increasing alienation of the press and societal disaffection with politics, public journalism is neither de-linked nor uninvolved in its subject matter and rather than simply criticising, attempts to promote certain outcomes. Public journalism in America has since evolved into very interactive engagement with citizens and their understanding of politics. Amner noted, however, there was still much debate about how engaged public journalism could become before blurring the distinction between politics and journalism. This was offset by the critique that journalistic neutrality implied little more than “supporting the interests of dominant social groups.”

Africa and specifically South Africa has seen the emergence of development journalism – a concept shaped mainly by governments and organisations that are active in development work. The mission is the creation of national consciousness and unity and increased co-operation and peaceful co-existence between diverse and sometimes hostile communities. Government typically uses the media to advance national development goals and inform citizens of its programmes and policies. Increasing the public profile of leadership and building political stability are key objectives for the proponents of this approach. However, many African journalists have instead seen the corruption of objective and professional journalism. Development journalism has been justified on the grounds that the machinery of government and social unity is so frail as to be endangered by a critical press or dissident views. In reality noted Amner, this form of journalism has been associated with situations where press freedom is denied, free elections are barred and individual rights cannot be secured through an independent judiciary.

Returning to the alternative or radical media, Amner drew upon Tanni Haas’s description as “…media devoted to providing representations of issues and events which oppose those offered in the mainstream media and to advocating social and political reform.” It replaces an ideology of “objectivity” with overt advocacy and oppositional practices and focuses more on the relationship between journalist and subject matter, often requiring that the journalist be immersed in that which is reported. Partiality is accepted as a more accurate representation of community views and citizens are encouraged to record their own realities and become empowered through the process of engaging with media. Highlighting the links with radical media, Amner suggested that “Alternative media is not about the ability to impact upon governmental institutions. It is more about altering individual and group self-perception, challenging oppressing social relations, and thereby enhancing participants’ own access to power.” Amner acknowledged, however, that the ability to “effect large-scale social and political reform” was seen by some as an essential component of alternative media.

In concluding his talk, Amner reiterated the idea that “the public” is, in fact, comprised of multiple publics who exist in a public sphere where power is unevenly exercised and where each public has different access to and influence over the state. Alternative journalism, unlike public journalism, responds to these unequal power relations by accepting a degree of advocacy in journalism and recognising that the choices exercised by journalists may either promote social change or consolidate the status quo. While formal associations with political or partisan interests may be difficult to justify, there is usually less discomfort when journalists engage in partnerships with politically benign organisations like NGOs, universities and civic groups.

Local Government Transformer Vol. 13 No. 1 Jan/Feb 2007